Flexible hours; Bank is always openCustomers are friendlyCo-workers are friendlyPay is less than average competitor bank pay

Cons

Management only cares about numbersNo professional growth opportunitiesVery stagnant positionsManagement only wants experienced employees if seeking job outside of customer service areaStop wasting MidFirst money and time on writing up employees for every little thing

My immediate team is good to work with and helped me develop new skills.

Cons

The cross-departmental teams I work with are fragmented and contentious and do not have an integrated vision as being a part of the same overall team. Women are not fully valued in the organization.

Advice to Management

Find ways to integrate all the teams and communicate more openly and directly. Remember that men dominate the financial industry, so even if it may seem like some women aren't succeeding, men wrote the rules of what it means to succeed in the financial industry. Consider creating conditions where women can thrive and their input is welcomed.

The previous leadership team in Phoenix had built a great culture and drove strong results. They hired a lot of good people and the company was a great place to work. The previous leadership team had done a good job of insulating all of the people in Arizona from the Oklahoma culture led by Stephen Ellis.

Cons

This review is specific to the Phoenix market. A couple of years ago the Phoenix market started to be managed by Oklahoma leadership (Stephen Ellis). This is where the entire culture that had been built at MidFirst in Phoenix started to deteriorate rapidly. Previous leadership drove results but treated people with dignity and respect. They created a collaborative culture where the best ideas surfaced and helped to contribute to the greater good. When Stephen Ellis took over he tried to make it appear that he cared what employees in Phoenix had to say but over time he started to show his true colors. He instilled a fear-based culture and seemed to only value "yes" men and women who did not challenge his authority. He bashed the previous regime (they are still with the company) who was well respected in public forums such as manager meetings. He is a very smart man but would be best suited to managing projects and not people. He comes across as pompous, arrogant and unapproachable. He had the audacity to allow his bank balance to be heard on speaker phone at a Regional meeting because he was trying to prove a point to someone who surfaced a question about customers in trying to retrieve his or her balance.

Another time in a meeting, Stephen threw a candy bar as hard as he could that narrowly missed an employees head in a stunt that he later described was a joke. The employee didn't take it that way and could have been seriously hurt had the flying projectile hit the employee.

Stephen single handedly ran off two well respected Regional Managers who had a combined total of 18 years of experience with the bank within a two month span. From everything I've heard, there is more wholesale turnover brewing as most Phoenix based employees have voiced just how unhappy they are. All of this is ashame because this had been a great company to work for before this one person came in and tainted the entire culture that had been built in the Phoenix market.

Advice to Management

Create a safe forum for current employees to provide feedback without fear of retaliation. People are less likely to share how they really feel because of the fear based culture that has been created. If the Phoenix market is still important to the company, something should be done to take this bad apple out of a position where he manages people so that his influence can be limited.

Offers wonderful products in comparison to competitor banks. Customer support throughout company is amazing. Very loyal and friendly customers.

Cons

New upper management isn't too involved with the needs/wants of lower level employees. Many employees including multiple branch managers have left the company within the last six months partially due to this issue.

Advice to Management

Hopefully this bank can stay afloat. There has been a huge number of employees leaving the company in a very short amount of time. It's going to be time to look for something else if things don't start to change.

Pay and raises are incredibly poor. Very micromanaged work, have to log everything you do everyday to prove your daily worth through a productivity system as well as when you go to the bathroom. It's very demeaning. They don't have consistent policies for things and cherry pick a lot of their rules due to none being written anywhere. QC dept makes working there even worse due to their guidelines. When asked they couldn't tell us what work and what guidelines they were using to QC said work. Huge lack of communication that happens within this specific department. They say there is room for advancement here I'd disagree. It took everyone in my dept 5-10 years to get into "senior positions" but they refuse to move them up to management positions and would rather bring people in from outside the company that know nothing about mortgage servicing to lead the dept leaving your associates to train management, which is so wrong. Why not promote someone who is well knowledgeable, been in the industry 10+ years and deserves the position?

Advice to Management

I know there's not much they can do as this most of the major cons come from higher up. But I guess I'd say show your employees more appreciation and communicate better. Work on some uniform guidelines for just about everything from QC to leave time. If we aren't told and management doesn't know what is expected then you can't expect us to just know these things either. Promote from within more.

- Beautiful Banking Centers- Benefits were affordable (when I was there)- Incentives to stay with company

Cons

- Banks are all about sales so numbers matter and can be stressful- Managers specifically are paid out based on teams numbers, can result in pushing sales that you may think are less than ethical or necessary